


The reason my winters are that much more special

by FallOutStucky



Series: Chanhun Advent Calender [15]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Parents, Baekhyun POV, Christmas, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fun, Light Angst, M/M, Married Couple, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 17:24:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17005932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallOutStucky/pseuds/FallOutStucky
Summary: Day 15:Every year Sehun and Chanyeol set out on a different mission. And every year Baekhyun has to tag along.





	The reason my winters are that much more special

**Author's Note:**

> Another one of my faves :)  
> This is actually the first one I started writing but I only finished it this week... I may have kinda forgotten about it :DD

"This is so dumb", Baekhyun comments as he holds up yet another Christmas jumper. This one too being rejected by his best friend, rummaging through piles of itchy woollen jumpers in different colours.

"It's too pretty", Sehun remarks. Baekhyun holds the thing away from himself to give it a closer look. Pretty is not really the word anyone would associate with it. It's bright red but not a nice red no, it's more of a neon pink. It's so bright that it stings the eyes. It's embroidered with yellow reindeer in bright red Santa heads and sunglasses. If you asked Baekhyun, it was pretty damn ugly. But apparently not ugly enough for Sehun.

The younger was discarding jumpers left and right before he let out a sign of resignation. "There's nothing."

"There's a lot", Baekhyun argues. "You just don't like any of it."

Sehun shakes his head. "Listen I need to go all out this year if I want to win. He's won four consecutive years and with every year he's getting more cocky about it." There's determination in his voice and Baekhyun already knows what that means.

"We need to find another store."

Baekhyun pretends to cry. This has been the fourth store they've been to. It was getting dark and he was tired but with Sehun's overflowing energy there seemed to be no end in sight.

"Can you at least buy me a muffin before that so that I don't die of hunger along the way?"

"Yeah, okay."

Twenty minutes, after stopping by a small coffee shop and buying a muffin for Baekhyun and a coffee for Sehun, they stand in front of yet another department store. Baekhyun has already made peace with the fact that he won't get the dinner he was promised before every store in town has closed.

He knows how this works. This isn't his first rodeo. He had accompanied Sehun to these missions since the very beginning.

It all had started a long time ago, when Chanyeol, the new kid in their class, who they had only been something alike to acquaintances with for a bit over a month had claimed that he could make a better eggnog than Sehun. Who made a pretty damn good one. He had been wrong of course, Sehun's was still superior.

This had, one year later, lead to the following situation: Chanyeol, now Sehun's and Baekhyun's second best friend besides each other, had asked for a rematch.  
And from there on they had done their Christmas Competitions every year.

Three years later Chanyeol, now Sehun's boyfriend, had proposed to find the best mulled wine available on the Christmas markets in their town. They had got incredibly drunk and declared that year a tie since neither them nor their friends had been able to judge on anything after the both had finally found what each of them deemed the perfect mulled wine.  
Six years later, Chanyeol, now Sehun's husband, had destroyed the lamp in their living room, trying to find the most beautiful Christmas tree.  
And now ten years later, Chanyeol and Sehun, now both with successful careers and parents of a two and a half year old son had set out on a mission to find the ugliest Christmas jumper known to mankind.

One might think having a full-time job and a small child to take care of would stop them from this kinda nonsense but no such luck. On the contrary, last years challenge had been to find the cutest Christmas themed outfit for their baby.

"It has to be perfect", Sehun mutters, scanning through the arrangement of Christmas themed clothing the store offered. "Kyungsoo is to good at finding weird stuff so Chanyeol's jumper will be practically unbeatable. Shit."

Baekhyun just rolls his eyes. He can practically picture it, small but fierce Kyungsoo with a determined look on his face, radiating the same energy as a mum in her fourties during a sale at her local grocery store and Chanyeol, his son strapped to his chest, looking like an oversized puppy more than anything else but ready to fight even your grandmother over the ugliest sweater.

"You could have chosen Kyungsoo to be your assistant this year."

"Are you kidding me? You've been my assistant from year one on, I'm not gonna replace you. Never."

Baekhyun screams into the jumper he's currently holding. "Please, please do. I'm getting tired."

"Stop whining and help me", Sehun just demands, pulling the jumper away from Baekhyun's face.

"Fine", Baekhyun sighs and starts pulling clothes out of the racks.

Thirty minutes later Baekhyun is sure he can't tell colours apart any more. He's been confronted with too many, too weird ones, too crazy motives and a lot of glitter.

Sehun is slowly losing his mind and so is he.

"There has to be something so hideous, that it's enough to win", the younger one groans. He has his head buried in a stack of red sweaters so his voice comes out muffled by that. Baekhyun wonders once again how this man is allowed to raise a child. And not that his husband is any better.

"Oh believe me there are plenty, you are just too picky."

Sehun comes up and stares at Baekhyun. "I'm not. I just know my husband and I know that if I want to beat him, I have to find something so disgustingly ugly that it hurts your eyes if you look at it longer than two seconds. I will feel it when it's the right one."

Baekhyun sighs again, for the millionth time that day. Oh how he regrets befriending those two idiots.

He tells Sehun this much. "I'm only still with you because I love your son more than anything and I won't let you corrupt him."

Sehun snorts. "Yes, Jaemin is perfect but if one of us is corrupting him it's you. I can already picture him taking up your strange habits when he gets older."

Baekhyun snorts. "Please, I'm educating him."

The smaller man has spotted a bench next to one of the clothing racks and is manoeuvring over to it. He basically can't feel his legs any more after walking the whole day. He's hungry and tired and absolutely doesn't want to be here but he's just that good of a friend. He takes a look on his watch. They had told Chanyeol that they'd be back around 7 so that he could have dinner ready. This left about one hour for Baekhyun to follow Sehun around aka 60 minutes until he got to cuddle is adorable godson and eat several plates of Chanyeol's wonderful rice and chicken skillet. Baekhyun has really earned this reward.

"Why do you even need to do this every year?", Baekhyun asks when Sehun sits down next to him, a defeated look on his face.

The younger shrugs. "I don't know either."

A small nostalgic smile spreads over his face. "We've been doing this for so long and we actually only became friends with Chanyeol because of it. So much has changed since then but these Christmas competitions are still the same." Baekhyun hasn´t expected such a serious answer.

He begins to play with the zipper of his jacket, meeting Baekhyun's eyes. "Every year when we do it I think about everything that has changed and how happy I've been the last times we've done it and I don't know I guess it's kind of a metaphor for mine and Chanyeol's relationship…like it's fun and unconventional and most of the time we have no idea what we are doing but somehow it's working and we get better at it. We challenge each other to get better and better and in the end it just makes us so happy. It goes on and on and you might think that it has to stop one day but it doesn't it gets weirder and more exciting. It's so hard raising a child while you both still continue to work and I know Chanyeol wants to go half-time too but we need the money and having your own house is so much more work than you think."

He lets out a deep sigh. "We just have so many responsibilities and for just this one week, once a year we get to be the same dumb teenagers we were back then."

He stares into the distance and Baekhyun feels almost like tearing up. He understands what Sehun means and for the first time in ten years he knows why they are doing what they are doing. He has always viewed Sehun and Chanyeol as that perfect couple without any problems, having a perfect life, being so much in love with each other that it was almost disgusting. They had been the first ones to get married within their friend group, now they had a child and their own house. Chanyeol was a successful architect, recently becoming one of the junior partners of his company while Sehun worked half-time as an editor for a fashion magazine. Baekhyun had always thought they had everything. Hearing Sehun talk about their struggles kind of opened his eyes.

Baekhyun jumps up and grabs Sehun's arms, pulling him from his seat. "Come on!"

"What are you doing?"

"Finding the best damn ugly jumper in the whole world to beat your idiot of a husband!"

And they do. When they park the car of their house Sehun's smile is radiant. Baekhyun really had found the perfect ugly sweater.

Sehun clutches the shopping bag tightly against his chest. As soon as Baekhyun had found a motivation it had really been a piece of cake to find the perfect jumper.  
Sehun is over the moon, having a little skip to his steps all the way up to their front door.

He unlocks the door, letting Baekhyun inside behind him.

„We're back!“, he yells while putting his coat away and slipping out of his boots. Chanyeol peaks around the corner, Jaemin on his hip. The small boy squeals upon seeing his father again, after he´s been gone the whole day and extends his arms towards Sehun who takes him from his husband, enveloping him in a tight hug and littering his small face with kisses. He only reluctantly gives him to Baekhyun to greet his husband.

Chanyeol kisses Sehun and hugs Baekhyun for a greeting. He smells of roasted chicken and vegetables and Baekhyun's stomach growls.

Chanyeol laughs wholeheartedly. He still has his arm around Sehun, keeping his husband close by his side. He rubs his arm through Sehun's thin sweater while Sehun's own hand comes up to entangle his fingers with Chanyeol's. Baekhyun can tell that they have missed each other just as much as Jaemin has.

"You can go to the kitchen, the food's almost ready", he says to Baekhyun. "Jongin and Kyungsoo are already there."

"Wait why is Jongin here?"

Chanyeol shakes his head as they follow Baekhyun into the kitchen. "Kyungsoo dragged him along because he doesn't want to wear the jumper so now Jongin has to do it."

Baekhyun nods before he stops and realizes something, he turns around to face Sehun. Jaemin stares at him in surprise, tightening his grip on Baekhyun´s shirt.

"You never said that I had to wear it!"

The younger one just shrugs. "Oops?"

"Oh boy, you owe me big time."

"You can have Jaemin the whole weekend next week", Sehun suggests, confirming with Chanyeol through one look only and Baekhyun is pretty sure they're doing that for purely selfish reasons. But who is he to say no to spending a whole 48 hours with his adorable godson. He hugs the boy tighter and steps into the kitchen to greet Jongin and Kyungsoo.

They decide to do the big jumper revel before eating since the skillet still needs about fifteen minutes until it's ready. Baekhyun only reluctantly gives Jaemin to his dad, exchanging him for the ugly jumper.

Baekhyun goes off to the bathroom to change while Jongin takes the bedroom. It only takes them a few seconds to change and come out again. Baekhyun is wearing a bathrobe to cover his up while Jongin has wrapped a blanket around himself.

When they come back into the kitchen there are four pairs of eyes watching them in anticipation.

„Okay, we'll count to three and than you reveal your jumpers“, Chanyeol announces.

„And just so you know, you're gonna loose“, he ads towards Sehun who just smiles, sure of the fact that the monstrosity Baekhyun had found will win.

Together they count to three and Baekhyun puts his robe off while Jongin throws the blanket away.  
Now Sehun and Baekhyun can see why he even had to wear a blanket in the first place and not just some kind of jacket like Baekhyun. The jumper in itself isn't too horrible, it´s of a crimson red colour and mirrors a brick wall. The horrible part is what´s on the front because there, inside of a fake Christmas wreath, sits a gigantic reindeer head. It was obviously a stuffed toy but that didn't make it´s black, dull eyes less hideous.

Sehun actually shivers, this thing is terrible. Just what he had expected, so he had raised the bar.

Because what Baekhyun was wearing was basically just one big collection of neon green tinsel like fabric, dusted with glitter, in the form of a pullover. It was decorated with red and gold baubles, glittery stars and hideous, creepy looking angel ornaments. The whole thing was covered in more gold-yellow tinsel and wrapped into Christmas lights, which made it hard for Baekhyun to put on.

„Oh my God, this is hard“, Kyungsoo just said after some time of them staring at those ugly ass pieces of clothing. „They are both so fucking ugly.“

Sehun held a hand up. „Just a moment.“ He had another trick up his sleeve.

„Baekhyun?“ The older grins wickedly before pulling the hood up over his head, revealing a giant yellow plastic star sitting on his head like a hat. He presses down on the button at the end of his sleeve and immediately the star as well as all the colourful Christmas lights light up and from the small hidden speaker inside the star Oh Christmas Tree starts playing.

Kyungsoo and Jongin break out into maniac laughter at the look of Baekhyun. Chanyeol´s jaw drops as he stares at Baekhyun, eyes incredibly wide.

Sehun just grins at him smugly, biting his lip in anticipation. His husband just nods, defeat written all over his features. He knows that he has lost. Kyungsoo and Jongin do too.

„Fine“, he admits. „You did it. You beat me.“

Sehun´s grin widens, he jumps out of his chair, twirling Jaemin around and throwing him up in the air. The little boy is squealing in joy.

"I won, I won, Jaeminnie! Papa actually won", he sings in pure joy. Chanyeol watches them both with an amused smile, the love he has for the two written all over his face. Baekhyun can´t help but smile. He hopes they do this dumb competitions until they are old and grey.

The little celebration continues until Jaemin demands to be let down because he´s hungry. The four adults agree and finally Baekhyun gets his more than needed food.

After dinner Kyungsoo and Jongin are resting on the couch while Baekhyun sits with Jaemin in his lap, reading a picture book about farm animals with him. From his position on the floor he can see Sehun and Chanyeol doing the dishes in the kitchen. They occasionally sneak glances at each other as if they are crushing teenagers. It's an adorable sight really. Every so often Chanyeol presses a kiss to Sehun's cheek when he walks past the other.

This little game of them goes on for quiet some time before Sehun teasingly slaps Chanyeol's butt as he puts wine glasses up onto the highest shelf. Sehun tries to flee the kitchen but Chanyeol grips him at the waist and spins them around in a small dance. Sehun is giggling like a small child and only stops when Chanyeol dips him back before bringing him up and against his chest.

Chanyeol wraps his arms around Sehun, nuzzling his cheek against the other's. His eyes are so full of love as he looks at his husband and kisses him softly. "I love you", he mutters.

Sehun boops his nose against Chanyeol's. "You only want me for my ugly jumpers."

Yeah, Baekhyun thinks. They'll be okay. As long as they stay together they'll be absolutely perfect.

"You have two pretty good dads", he whispers into Jaemin's soft hair. "You're really lucky to have them."

**Author's Note:**

> Suggestion:  
> It makes a great drinking game if you read all of these stories and take a shot every time Baekhyun thridwheels Chanhun


End file.
